Adventures of Pebble Beach

by Berger, Barbara

  Now was different. Pebble was actually going to meet the kid at Cafe Sommersko. This was no longer an accidental event, but a planned occasion involving suddenly more than just the gods of chance. Cafe Sommersko, a Parisian-style cafe which seemed to have been transplanted whole from the Left Bank to the heart of Copenhagen in the 70s used to be one of those places people went – to hang out and be seen. Pebble remembered how when she first came to Copenhagen the place was packed with hopeful musicians, intense university students, and political activists, artists and intellectuals – all hobnobbing with gorgeous-looking creatures of both sexes in the dim, crowded rooms facing Kronprinsensgade. Today the place was more ordinary, just like any old cafe, so Pebble figured it would be okay for Per to meet her there, but now she wasn’t so sure. He’ll probably be scared to death.

  She surveyed the pile of clothes on her bed in disgust. Nothing worked. She had tried every thinkable combination from hooker to nice mom, without success. None of them felt right. Who am I anyway? If she wanted to get to Sommersko before Per, this was no time for deep questions. A glance at her watch told her she was running late. Oh my God, I forgot the time. Now I’ll never make it. Suddenly in a hurry, she pulled on her old faithful stonewashed Levis, her white Marc O’Polo sweatshirt (the one she always felt good in), her wonderful, battered leather jacket and her most expensive Italian boots. The whole point of this exercise is to get undressed anyway! She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. Being so clear about her motives (for once in her life) made her feel good. It’s all this ruthless honesty stuff I hear from Irene. Maybe it’s beginning to sink in. Pebble was still going to Irene once a week. It was like a new religion or something, just more expensive. The grin on her face grew, I guess it doesn’t matter how you wrap the package, does it? It’s what’s inside that counts! She flicked out the light and ran lightly out of her apartment.

  Pebble arrived at Cafe Sommersko early because she was sure Per would turn and run if he got there first. It was that kind of place. You had to be cosmopolitan enough to know how to hang out Danish style to feel relaxed at Sommersko on a Friday night when the place was jammed. Pebble surveyed the throngs of veteran cafe-goers navigating nonchalantly through people deep in conversation over beers and cappuccinos. Per would be too young for this kind of serious cafe know-how. And besides, he was an electrician, and electricians from suburbs like Taastrup don’t hang out in places like Cafe Sommersko.

  Waiting by the crowded bar, a glass of wine in hand, Pebble was having serious doubts about meeting such a kid. But who’ll ever know? She told herself it was an experiment. I mean – who cares anyway? I’m entitled to a little fun, aren’t I? She knew Irene would approve of that attitude, but besides Irene, there was this little voice inside saying, Shame on you, Pebble, you’re nothing but a cradle robber! Pebble was just about to get depressed (What would my mother say if she knew?) when she saw Per come walking through the cafe door. The sight of that man-sized bundle of vitality put a quick stop to the chatter going on inside her head. If only Clare could see him, she’d die. Pebble didn’t move from the bar. Instead, she allowed herself that wonderful luxury of enjoying the moment of expectation to its fullest. She took in the whole scene – and saw herself standing by the bar in her trusty leather jacket, surrounded by the usual crowd as Per plunged in, as unsullied and innocent as newly fallen snow. Suddenly she realized being over 40 was great. You have to be, to be able to enjoy moments like this. She sighed with appreciation. I’m glad I gave myself the time. This was a moment, she took for herself. Then, watching Per search the crowded cafe for her face, she thought of Clare. Clare’s such a sucker for bodies, she’d love Per. Clare had been telling Pebble for ages that she owed it to herself to have a little fun after all those years of marriage and kids.

  “Ah, come on, Pebble,” Clare muttered on the phone when Pebble told her about meeting Per on the plane home. “Go out and try it – you deserve it!” She sounded just like Irene.

  Per’s face lit up like a Christmas tree when he spotted Pebble by the bar. He seemed so young and awkward as he approached that she hugged him as soon as he got near her.

  “Oh Per, it’s so good to see you.” Besides wanting to ease his shyness, she meant it. Every ear at the bar was listening, checking them out. People knew Pebble, even the cafe regulars who didn’t know her, knew her. Since her divorce, she’d become a familiar face on the Copenhagen cafe scene. Freelancers generally hung out in cafes anyway, sharing gossip and business tips here and there. But Per – nobody had seen him before. Pebble noticed more than one woman sizing him up.

  “Pebble,” he hugged her in his strong arms then turned tongue-tied.

  “What have you been doing with yourself?” She waved to the girl behind the bar to bring Per a beer. She wanted to help Per slide into casual conversation, but he couldn’t. Instead he peered in every direction, stunned by the diversity of the crowd. It was as if every lost soul within a 500-mile radius was suddenly gathered in Sommersko to say hi to some cousin who had just turned up out of nowhere. Pebble took his hand and turned the full blast of her warmest, most womanly smile on him, “You look terrific, Per, you really do.”

  In a flash, his eyes were riveted on Pebble, the crowded cafe forgotten. “Oh yeah…I’m okay…I guess.” He thought she looked terrific, too, but he was too shy to tell her.

  “Wasn’t it great to come home again?” She nudged him playfully. “Do you remember how we hated Greenland?”

  That brought a smile to his lips. “Yeah.” But he still wasn’t ready to talk. On the plane he’d talked a blue streak, but Sommersko wasn’t an airplane and they weren’t high on freedom anymore. When the girl behind the bar with the punk-like, black spiked hair brought Per his beer, he guzzled it like Pebble imagined an electrician should. Then he took a deep breath, straightened his collar and turned towards Pebble. “Let’s get out of here,” he said forcefully.

  “Don’t you like it here?” she asked quietly.

  “It’s not that, but I want to be alone with you. How can we talk here?” He motioned towards the crowded cafe. “There’s such a racket in this place.”

  “Okay, let’s go.” She put her arm in his and led him to the door. He looked younger and more inexperienced than she remembered.

  Per drove straight to the suburban high rise where he lived. It was quiet there, Danish suburbs always were. What little night life there was, you’d find in downtown Copenhagen. The rest of Denmark was nice, clean, safe and boring. Pebble knew she shouldn’t be so critical, but she was a big city girl. She grew up in New York and thrived on excitement. The red-brick Taastrup apartment complex where Per lived was made up of high rises interspersed with neat rows of two-family bungalows. It was only ten o’clock in the evening, but the streets were deserted. Pebble knew that this bland lifestyle called Danish quality living by social democrats around the world was an unreachable dream for most of the world’s population. Still, the neighborhood Per lived in looked incredibly boring.

  His apartment was boring, too. It looked (and felt) like it was plucked ready-made out of a furniture catalogue for young adults who’d just moved away from home. Maybe it was.

  “My girlfriend Louisa moved out last week,” he tried to explain the bareness. “She took a lot of stuff with her.”

  Pebble remembered the girlfriend story from the airplane. When she talked about seeing each other again, Per had clammed up. Pebble (she told Per all about Albert) suggested they have dinner together sometime. It seemed like a good idea, considering how attracted they were to each other. Per’s first reaction was, “Oh great!” Then he shut up for the first time since they sat down next to each other on the plane and started talking. It took Pebble a while to find out that Per was afraid of having dinner with her because he had a girlfriend. The girlfriend didn’t bother Pebble at all. She wasn’t planning on marrying Per anyway, so what difference did a girlfriend or two make? He’s got more than enough body to go around. As far as Pebble was concer
ned, he could keep his soul and his girlfriend, too. She said she’d call him.

  “So you broke up?” That was news.

  “Yeah,” Per took Pebble’s leather jacket and hung it on the coat rack. “I told you things weren’t going that well, don’t you remember?”

  Pebble was walking around the room, touching things, surveying the turf. It was different being with a younger man. She felt different.

  She turned and walked back towards him and threw her arms around his neck. “I didn’t think we were going to let Louisa keep us from going out to dinner anyway…” He wasn’t old enough to grasp her concept. She didn’t care.

  “Can I get you something to drink.” He couldn’t hold her yet, it was too soon.

  “Sure.” She sat down on the couch thinking, What in the world are we going to talk about?

  Per returned from the kitchen with a couple of beers.

  Why am I doing this? Pebble wasn’t sure if Per was worth the effort. If this had been Hollywood, he would have been a mature and sensitive conversationalist, even though he was only 24. But this was Taastrup, and Pebble felt out of place. Why can’t I just go on one of those larks like the women you read about in bestsellers or see in the movies do? All I ever do is work and schlepp groceries for my kids.

  “Louisa was just too bourgeois for me,” Per was explaining. “She wanted to have kids and everything, right away. I just wasn’t ready.”

  Pebble was hardly listening. The debate between her brain and body continued to distress her. Why do I always have to worry? Why can’t I just turn it off? She snuggled up next to Per, determined to listen to every word he said. You’ve got to lighten up a bit and live in the present! That’s what everybody says. And stop wasting all your energy worrying… Pebble found reading self-help books (she had an impressive stack by her bedside) was much easier than actually following the advice in them.

  “Do you know why I called you? I mean I knew you wouldn’t call me…I just couldn’t forget you, Pebble. I mean our conversation on the plane. Do you remember?”

  She smiled, thinking back to their flight. “Yes, vaguely. I just remember there was this instant connection between us…we were so happy to get away from that place.”

  Thinking back to how desperate they were to leave Greenland made them both laugh.

  “Yeah,” he swirled his beer around in his glass. She knew he wanted to tell her more.

  “You made me feel something I’d never felt before…I don’t know how to explain it.” He turned and looked at her. “You’re so exciting, do you know that?”

  “Me?” she laughed. “I don’t know if you’d think I was so exciting if you heard about my life since I got back. The last few months have been impossible.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “Remember I told you I was a freelancer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m not anymore.”

  “You mean you gave it up?” He was shocked. Part of the mystique of Pebble Beach was her independence. He’d never met anyone like her before.

  “Well not exactly. It’s a long story, Per, and I’d really like to tell you some day, but I can’t right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not sure what happened myself. Somehow I got involved in this scandal while I was away and I came back to a stupid mess. My whole career was in ruins.”

  “I don’t believe it, Pebble. What did you do?”

  “I’m not really sure, but I’ll tell you when I find out. Until that happens, I had to take a job to support myself and my kids.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah…actually I like it. It’s funny, I didn’t think I would, but I got this great opportunity and it’s a lot of fun.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m working for the Republic Group.”

  “You are?” There was awe in Per’s voice. Everyone in Denmark knew about the Republic Group; it was the biggest advertising agency in the country.

  “Yeah, I’m Assistant to the Vice-President.”

  “God, Pebble, that’s great.”

  Per was overwhelmed. He couldn’t figure out what a woman like Pebble was doing in his apartment. Funny thing was, she couldn’t either.

  “What about Albert? Have you heard from him?”

  “Yeah, he’s doing okay. He calls me sometimes.” She was silent for a while, looking at her beer and thinking about Albert. Every time she thought of him, she felt bad. The bond was still there.

  “Do you still love him?” Per asked.

  “Didn’t I tell you he’s an alcoholic?”

  “You did, but you can love an alcoholic, too.” He was wise enough for one so young. Damn, I don’t want to look at it. Albert’s far away and he drinks like a fish. Pebble got up and walked over to Per’s stereo equipment. He had lots and lots of CDs. “Shouldn’t we put on some music?”

  Per followed her and they selected something by Robbie Williams…and Pebble thought, Same music as my kids listen to… But even music couldn’t drown out the tension in the room; both of them felt uncomfortable. Pebble realized that Per was not going to sweet talk her into his bedroom as she’d hoped. He just didn’t know how. He might not know her exact age, but he knew she was older – much older – and that knowledge seemed to inhibit him sorely. If anything exciting was going to happen, Pebble would have to initiate it herself. She went back to the couch and opened another beer. Now’s the time to forget what a good girl I’ve been all my life. She’d never done anything like this before. Why can’t you act like a man, woman! She moved much closer to Per. If only Einar was half as pretty as Per, life would be so much easier! But Pebble knew wishful thinking got you nowhere in the real world. No amount of creative visualization on her part would change Einar’s face.

  Moving closer helped. Per was eating his heart out trying to figure out how to get Pebble from the sofa to his bedroom. He knew instinctively they had to make love before there was any chance of their being friends. He couldn’t explain why, he just knew it. He was so tense, Pebble almost despaired.

  Maybe he’s never slept with anyone besides Louisa – he’s so young. Pebble cupped his face between her hands and kissed him gently, full on the mouth. Sparks illuminated the bare room. Per was so surprised and encouraged by her heat that his strong arms slid firmly around her. Now that the ice was broken, they snuggled and kissed for a while, enjoying the nearness and warmth of each other’s presence.

  Then Pebble freed herself from his embrace and got up. The look of dismay on his face melted when she stretched out her arms and said, “Come.” She didn’t know exactly where his bedroom was, but she was planning on leading him there anyway.

  He stood up.

  She pressed herself into him. She felt his hardness working perfectly. He might be a kid, but that part of him works like a man. “Per?” she looked up at him. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  They both laughed.

  And somehow the laughter helped him rediscover the boldness he’d felt on the plane from Greenland. He dragged her to his room.

  Their lovemaking started out so awkwardly that Pebble almost wished she’d stayed home. Once he’d gotten her part way undressed, the thought of how experienced she probably was – compared to him – almost paralyzed him completely. He fumbled around with her clothes and her body for ages. In fact he fumbled so long that Pebble had plenty of time to worry about her body and how she would look to him when she was naked. What if he thinks I’m too old? She wondered if her breasts were firm enough – or if they sagged. Maybe he’ll compare me to Louisa. It wasn’t pleasant to think about – a 21-year-old body is a hard act to follow.

  And then it happened…finally! Her clothes were off and Per was deep in her…Only something was wrong…after waiting so long, everything was happening too fast…way too fast. Pebble had forgotten how young men are. His urgency gave her no time. He humped and thumped on top of her with gunshot rapidness, coming before she had time to find him a
t all. He was finished before she even tuned into his movement, or picked up his energy. Pebble was furious. God what a waste! WHAT A @#1@WASTE!! After all that effort…and aggravation…the kid goes off like a rocket…before I even get started! When he rolled over, Pebble was so mad she could have cried.

  She stared up at the ceiling, stunned. Damn, damn, damn! It just isn’t fair. She was ready to get out of bed, put on her clothes and say, Thanks for nothing, kid! when God gave her a miracle.

  Per got another erection. He was, you remember, only 24.

  And the amazing thing about this amazing erection was that it was just as hard as the first one, and just as perfect. And (God is Great) equally usable for a woman like Pebble Beach.

  And this erection, being Per’s second, lasted longer. Which gave Pebble ample time to forget her anger, her inhibitions and her age, and climb right up on top of him. Where she frolicked and danced and thoroughly enjoyed herself, while he, growing older and wiser every moment, waited until she was good and ready. And then, when he heard her moaning and groaning like the apocalypse was approaching, he knew that if he was ever going to have a chance with this marvelous, mellow fellow-creature named Pebble Beach again, it was now or never.

  So he let himself go, and this time, his timing was perfect. And for that short moment, he was an absolute miracle. He let go of his youth, and his Danish shyness, and found the Viking in his soul, bellowing like a bull while Pebble grunted and groaned and enjoyed every lusty thrust of Per’s iron rod in her pulsating womb. Then Pebble came with a full-blown, head-shattering, cunt-wrenching, body-twisting orgasm, and Per, wonderful Per, was right there with her.